BX 








LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



. 



/ 



ff * 



LUX JV^UNDI 



. . AND . . . 



Other Tracts for the Times 



L. P. MERCER 



"Lux Mundi 



Other Tracts for The T 



imes 



SWEDENBORG AND MODERN THOUGHT 



/ 



By Rev. L. P. Mercer 



PYRlGHr^ / 



CHICAGO 

Western New-Church Union 
1891 







Copyright, iSqi. 
L. P. MERCER 



Contents. 



Page. 

" Lux Mundi " 5 

Faith and Common Sense 16 

What we know of God 24 

What think Ye of Christ 35 

The Atonement 48 

Probation and Providence 58 

The Christian Life.., 67 

The Future Life ,. 74 



"LUX MUNDI" 

/;/ the beginni?ig was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God. 

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. John i : 1,4. 

/^VNE of the most significant books of the times 
bears this title, " Lux Mundi." It is a " Series 
of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation," by 
certain Oxford clergymen, who found themselves 
" compelled for their own sake, no less than that of 
others, to attempt to put the Catholic faith into its 
right relation to modern intellectual and moral prob- 
lems." The result is interesting, as showing a keen 
appreciation of the " new points of view " and " new 
questions," which science and the rational tenden- 
cies of thought have introduced into theology, and 
at the same time the utter futility of all attempts to 
trim the lamps of a past age to light the travelers 
through the more complicated ways of thought in 
the present. 

The Oxford Clergymen say : " We are sure that 
Jesus Christ is still and will continue to be the 
< Light of the World.' We are sure that if men can 



6 LUX MUNDI 

rid themselves of prejudices and mistakes (for which, 
it must be said, the Church is often as responsible as 
they), and will* look afresh at what the Christian 
faith really means, they will find that it is adequate 
as ever to interpret life and knowledge in its several 
departments, and to impart not less intellectual than 
moral freedom. But we are conscious also, that if 
the true meaning of the faith is to be made suffi- 
ciently conspicuous, it needs disencumbering, rein- 
terpreting, explaining." 

This is indeed a frank statement of the case, as all 
see and feel it, who retain their love for the Gospel 
and faith in Jesus Christ. And this frankness runs 
throughout the book so far as the recognition of the 
need for disencumbering and reinterpreting the 
Christian faith is concerned. But the authors in this 
volume " have written as the servants of the Cath- 
olic Creed and Church, aiming only," they say, " at 
interpreting the faith we have received." They 
have bound themselves by the Nicene and Athana- 
sian Creeds ; and while stripping away some of the 
grosser falsifications of later theologic developments, 
find themselves committed to the same old and im- 
possible problems of reconciling a Trinity of three 
co-equal and co-eternal persons with the Unity of 
God and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and of har- 
monizing the doctrine of the vicarious and propitia- 
tory Atonement of Christ with any just intellectual 
and moral conception of One Divine Personality, 



LUX MUNDI 7 

who is of the nature of an infinitely good and true 
Heavenly Father. They fail here, as all must fail, 
for the simple reason that this is not the Gospel. 
Instead of going back to the doctrine of Him who 
is the " Light of the World," they accept to begin 
with, as final, the first official and effectual extin- 
guisher which the early Christian Church put upon 
the light of that doctrine. 

The task they set themselves is hopeless. What 
they need, and what the Christian world needs is, 
not explanation of the so-called Catholic Creeds, but 
explanation of the Word of God. Not " revision," 
but revelation! Not a new interpretation of an old 
error, but exposure of the error and an unveiling of 
the mind of Christ. 

Jesus Christ is the "Light of the World," be- 
cause He is the Truth; because He speaks the 
words of truth for men; and because His life in 
them is the light by which men are able to see the 
truth of what He teaches. 

If this was ever true it is true always. If " the 
epoch in which we live is one of profound trans- 
formation, abounding in new needs, new points of 
view, new questions," He must reveal its solutions 
as He did when He appeared among men. 

How shall this be? 

He appeared among men as God in manifest 
human personality; in direct relations with men and 
spirits and angels; with manifest power in heaven 



8 LUX MUNDI 

and on earth; speaking the words of life, showing 
the way of life and giving the wisdom of life to as 
many as received Him. He was the " Light of the 
World " when he appeared, because he could tell 
men what they needed to know, and could gift 
them inwardly with power to see and do what He 
taught. He is the " Light of the World " for the 
same reason — because He is pr'esent by His Spirit 
with all men, and has power in heaven and on earth 
to use all things of both worlds that are necessary 
to instruct and enlighten men in what they need to 
see and do. He did not work without the use of 
means, and He does not; but He has power to adapt 
the means to the conditions and needs of men. 

If then, there are changed conditions in our day, 
and new developments of need with men, those who 
believe in Him as the " Light of the World " may 
expect that, new and adequate truths will be pro- 
vided by Him. 

One of the most amazing features of current 
thought is, that those who seem to recognize most 
clearly the need of new truths, and who, at the same 
time cling most devoutly to Christ as the " Light 
of the World," do not seem to have entertained the 
idea that He has taught, or can, or will teach any- 
thing new, or other than the letter of the Gospel on 
which the Christian Church was founded. 

He taught that He had many things to say for 
which they were not then prepared; that faith 



LUX MUNDI 9 

should fail, and divided counsels and contentions pre- 
vail; that the Church then established should fall 
into evil and darkness, and be consummated as a 
teaching and regenerating power; and that He 
would come again and reveal Himself with glory 
and power, and speak plainly, without a parable. 

The New Church believes that these things have 
come to pass; and that the Lord has fulfilled His 
promise, and again proves Himself the " Light of 
the World," by revealing the true meaning of the 
Sacred Scriptures, the true nature of heaven and 
hell, and the true doctrines of the Christian religion 
in such rational forms as were not needed and could 
not have been useful in the primitive Church, but 
are imperatively needed and are adequate to the 
problems of this age. The New Church believes 
that these needed truths are clearly and distinctly 
explained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, 
and that he received them not as the fruit of his own 
eminent intelligence, nor by development of the 
Catholic Creeds, so called, but by revelation from 
the Lord Jesus Christ while reading the Word. 

The appeal is to the " Light of the World." " In 
Him is Life, and His Life is the light of men." If 
He has revealed these needed truths, He will enable 
all earnest and honest seekers after truth to know 
that they are true. " Whoever will fairly examine 
those writings," to put it in the language of a layman 
and a lawyer, " will find that they so far transcend the 



IO LUX MUNDI 

achievements of human genius that they cannot 
rationally be regarded as the product of invention; 
and that they are so logically consistent and in har- 
mony with natural law as to utterly exclude the idea 
that they are the result of delusion." They resolve 
doubts, enlighten and establish faith, and witness to 
their own origin, in fulfillment of the Divine purpose 
that the Church which was founded upon the Word, 
might again revive and draw breath through heaven 
from the Lord. 

The Christian Church was founded upon the 
simplest doctrine: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and repentance and remission of sins in His name. 
They looked to Him as " the only wise God, our 
Saviour," " in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the 
Godhead bodily." They looked to the Lord Jesus 
alone. They thought of the Father as in Him and of 
the Holy Spirit as from Him. They thought that in 
baptizing " into the name of Jesus Christ " they 
were baptizing " into the name of the Father and the 
Son and the Holy Spirit." Repentance meant to 
them, not merely sorrow for sin, but actual shunning 
of evils as sins against God, with the power of re- 
mission, or the removal of them from the life, with 
all who denied and resisted them in the name of 
Christ. This simple faith opened to them the 
Scriptures, and a life in accordance with it brought 
to them the influx and power of the Holy Spirit. 
They " went forth and preached everywhere, the 



LUX MUNDI II 

Lord working with them and confirming the Word 
with signs following." 

It was the collision of Christianity with Greek 
thought which gave rise to theology in the strict 
sense of the term. It met an earnest and non-re- 
ligious philosophy which was engaged in the con- 
templation of reason in the universe and in man. 
Some of the Christian fathers had experienced the 
benefits of many of its processes. But in their con- 
version they had learned that religion demands a 
Person who transcends and is yet immanent and 
omnipresent in the universe and in man; a God in 
whom centres and from whom proceeds and operates 
that reason w r hich philosophy contemplates in the 
order of the world. With apostolic zeal to har- 
monize religion and philosoplry, and to commend 
Christianity to the learned, not unmixed with pride 
of intelligence and ambition of intellectual power, 
the Greek fathers developed the doctrine of the 
Logos, and sought to show " the identity of Him 
who was made flesh and dwelt among us, with Him 
by Whom all things were made and by Whom all 
things consist." An effort is discernible in the 
theology of the second and third centuries to pre- 
sent the Love or Being of God as existing and 
operating in the eternal Word, or Logos, which in 
its proceeding forth created all things, and is imma- 
nent in creation, as the spirit and life of all its move- 
ments, sustaining and ruling it, as well as transcend- 



12 LUX MUNDI 

ing it. It conceived of this creative word or wisdom 
of God, " indwelling in the universe as the source 
and condition of all its life, and in man as the light 
of his intellectual being," as personally Incarnate in 
Jesus Christ, manifesting God in Him, revealing the 
character of God and working His will, and thus 
coming into organic and healing relations to human- 
ity. All this was in substantial agreement with the 
Logos doctrine of the fourth Gospel, and a devel- 
opment of reason within the lines of Revelation. 

But when presently they began to inquire how it 
could be, they stepped beyond the limits of their 
Revelation, and fell into the confusion of specu- 
lation and invention. How could God be in the 
universe and yet not of it? How, in Christ and yet 
Christ suffer and die? More or less active heresies 
soon developed into positive denials of the reality of 
the Incarnation and of the Divinity of Christ; and 
in order to establish that doctrine the dogma of 
three co-equal and co-eternal Persons was in- 
vented. 

The Oxford Clergymen, and other scholars of the 
modern Church, looking back to these movements 
of thought in the third century, discern the practical 
identity of the problems which confronted the Greek 
Fathers, with those of the present day, and seek to 
revive and apply their fundamental ideas to the 
solution of the religious and philosophical conflicts 
of to-day. 



LUX MUNDI x 3 

The relation of Swedenborg to this tendency of 
modern thought is that he anticipates its discovery 
of the relative purity of the theology of the Greek 
fathers, and while it mistakes the Nicene dogma of 
tripersonality as the legitimate development of their 
ideas, he shows it to be the triumph of antichrist 
and the eclipse of the light the Church had pre- 
viously enjoyed. The decline of the Church began 
with that council and its inventions, and progressed 
with every fresh importation of Latin thought, and 
actually culminated in the last century in a theology 
which had so falsified the Scriptures that they could 
not, by any, be understood, except their genuine 
truths should again be taught by the Lord, and 
maintained against the existing Church and its so- 
called Catholic Creeds. 

Swedenborg therefore carries the work of " dis- 
encumbering " the Christian faith further back than 
the Oxford Clergymen; back, not to the Nicene 
Creed, but to the Gospel; and this not as "the 
servant of the Catholic Church," but as " the servant 
of Jesus Christ." In His Name He declares anew 
the doctrines of Christianity as contained in the 
Word, and his appeal is not to what the Church has 
taught about the " Light of the World," but to the 
« Light of the World " Himself, and the witness of 
His Spirit with the spirit of man, as to the truth of 
what He has taught. 

So again, as to the attempt of the early Church to 



14 LUX MUNDI 

harmonize religion and philosophy, Swedenborg 
shows that it was only partially successful, because 
the Christian fathers had not the necessary truths. 
The attempt was confined to a few scholars, and if 
they had possessed the requisite spiritual knowledges, 
they could have influenced but a few minds in their 
own day, and not at all the masses whom the church 
was to conquer and civilize. It is different in this 
age. Natural knowledge and rational thought have 
become the property of the many, and " such per- 
sons can never receive any faith unless they first 
comprehend, in some measure, how it may be so." 
It is not the few, but the masses, who say in this day, 
" I would believe, if I knew how it could be so." 
Therefore, he says, it is both possible and necessary 
and useful that the spiritual knowledges which enable 
man to see " how " and " why," should be brought 
forth — knowledge concerning the relation of soul 
and body, of the spiritual world and the natural 
world, of the internal sense of the Word and its 
literal sense, of the Divine and the Divine Human 
in the Lord, and of the internal meaning, processes 
and relations of the work of redemption which He 
accomplished. And he shows that these knowledges 
are not at all within the reach of man's reasoning 
from natural premises, but that they are within the 
sight of reason when taught; and that Christ is the 
" Light of the World," because He can teach them 
when needed, and has now taught them because 



LUX MUNDI 1 5 

needed, and enables those to see and understand 
who receive them by instruction. Such instruction 
and enlightenment is the second coming of Christ; 
and it is now for whoever will receive Him. 

" Our human needs are prophecies of gifts; 
They were not planted else. We crave, we have; 
We yearn for and obtain ; the soul's deep want 
Prepares the soul, thus thirsting, to receive 
The good it wants." 

The modern world confesses a need, and by mul- 
tiform speculations manifests its yearning. Sweden- 
borg says the Lord, who is always beforehand w T ith 
His children's needs, has provided the " gift " in 
" doctrines which were not in the former Church," 
and which reveal and open the mind to " the good 



FAITH AND COMMON SENSE. 

IP HE President of the Swedenborg Society of 
London said, the other day, If Agnosticism 
has done any service to Faith it is in forcing the 
perception on the world and compelling the attitude 
on the part of the Church either that she knows 
and is saved, or knows not and her end has come. 
Knowledge or consummation ! The common people 
see it; and in some measure the leaders of thought 
in the Church see it also. 

The Oxford Clergymen see that their attempt to 
put the Christian faith into its " right relation to 
modern intellectual and moral problems," must be- 
gin with a study of what faith itself means. Their 
first essay is addressed to those who are fearing for 
themselves as they sadly search their own hearts 
and ask, " What is it to believe ? Do I know what 
it is to believe ? Have I, or have I not, that which 
can be called « faith ' ? How can I be sure ? " It 
analyzes the panic into which faith is thrown be- 
cause challenged by novel experiences, and seeks to 
show that perplexity is consistent with faith when 

16 



FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 1 7 

faith is stripped of its habital corroborations from 
without and summoned to submit itself to internal 
observation. For faith is held to be an elemental 
act of the personal self; and therefore like all such 
acts, for example of thought, will, love, is necessa- 
rily incapable of submitting itself for scientific exam- 
ination. Faith is held to be the motion in us of our 
sonship in the Father; the conscious recognition and 
realization of our inherent filial adhesion to God. 
As such it is present, as the animating force, within 
all natural faculties; when called out into positive, 
direct action on its own account it is religion. 

The strength of this opening essay, so far as its 
end of succoring a distressed and doubtful mind is 
concerned, will be found in its showing that the 
whole possibility of belief is involved in the human 
consciousness ready to be disclosed. Its weakness 
on the other hand, is in leaving it defined as a con- 
scious feeling of relationship with God and trust in 
Him, without knowledge and sight. This weak- 
ness arises from failure to grasp the need and use 
of Revelation and instruction as the Divine means of 
developing the powers involved in human conscious- 
ness. The inquirer is left asking " What is this 
primal act of self? What is this intimacy of son- 
ship? How can I know it?" And the agnostic, 
stronger than ever in his position, will demand " If 
I must believe let me know." The well-meant at- 
tempt to meet the situation is turned to naught by 



lb FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 

the trial of the old falsity in the church, that faith 
can be without knowledge, and belief without under- 
standing. 

Swedenborg's contribution to the solution of mod- 
ern conflicts, is in the showing that faith is internal 
sight and acknowledgment of the truth; just as 
natural, just as confident of its object, and certain 
of itself, as the light of the eye, or the working of 
the ordinary faculties of the mind. 

All faith is of sight. Its foundation is in human 
nature. Its consciousness and realization of itself, 
varies with the objects of sight. A man has faith 
in the reality of his sensations. The light and the 
eye present objects, and the mind sees them. This 
is the belief and confidence of common sense. A 
man believes in rational and moral things from 
sight. He believes in a truth of science, for exam- 
ple, because it is presented to the mind by instruc- 
tion or experiment, and the mind sees it in rational 
light. He believes in honesty, purity and helpful- 
ness, because they are presented to him by instruction 
and example, and he sees that they are right. 

Religious faith differs from these only because it 
has different objects of belief, and sees them in a 
higher light. The natural faculties are not able of 
themselves to discern God, the spiritual world, and 
heavenly love, because these do not appear in nat- 
ural light. They do not become objects of sight 
until they present themselves by revelation. Thus 



FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 



*9 



the Word becomes flesh, takes on human form and 
conditions, involves an inward wisdom in natural 
language, and presents itself to the mind by instruc- 
tion ; and the mind perceiving its truths in the spirit- 
ual light that always flows in from within, exclaims 
" Whereas I was blind, now I see." This, like all 
lower faith, is the confidence of sight. At every 
stage it is an ultimate fact. You cannot tell how 
you know that it is light ; you see it. You know there 
must be an eye to see with, and light to see by, and ob- 
jects to see; but given these, you see, and that is the 
end of it. No sane man allows himself to doubt. 
You do not know how you see that honesty is right; 
you see it, having had the matter presented. So 
faith in spiritual things, when it is real, when it is 
belief based not on wish or fancy, but on fact or 
truth, is an inward sight, and knows that it sees.* 
The foundation of faith varies with its objects. 
In material things the organ of sight is the eye, and 
it must be sound to perceive ; but the conviction of 
knowledge is founded in self, in its consciousness, 
circumspection, delight in its world, and instinct of 
preservation. Faith in moral facts has its organ in 
a sound and rational mind, but the conviction of 
knowledge is grounded in a sense and love of duty. 
In religious faith, there must be truths not falsities, 



*The author is conscious of being indebted for some of these illustrations 
to a Sermon on "Faith" by Rev. T. F. Wright of the Cambridge New 
Church Theological School. 



20 FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 

knowledges not persuasions, and there must be some 
soundness of rational thought to grasp facts not 
fancies; but the foundation of inward sight, of the 
internal acknowledgment of the thing seen, will be 
love, not of self, but of something above self. 

These foundations of sight are provided for in the 
endowment of faculty and the pupilage of man in 
nature. Sight of things, grounded in the senses and 
in the conscious self, is in the nature of things and 
in the nature of human faculty, and naturally 
developed in the child's pupilage. Conviction of 
civil and moral right is grounded in the inherent law 
of social relations, and comes to conscious maturity 
by knowledge forming the mind within and planting 
affections of delight in the child's habits of right and 
duty. So the love of something above self, the love 
of God, of heavenly righteousness and truth and 
goodness, as the ground of religious faith, is provid- 
ed for in the nature of the mind, and developed in 
the affections of the infant and child, and remains 
and is active and appealing, until it is perverted, de- 
nied and destroyed. The faculty is there with 
power to see the truth of God, of spiritual and 
heavenly life, when presented by Revelation and in- 
struction, and regarded from the affections of love 
for an absolutely good and true. 

Swedenborg reverses the old dogma that faith 
transcends knowledge, that the understanding must 
be kept subordinate to faith, that we must not seek 



FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 21 

to understand the objects of faith or the subject of 
its dogma. He affirms that faith is inward sight of 
real things. It is the conviction of the mind in what 
it sees, not merely in what it feels; certainty of 
knowledge not a blind persuasion. Man has this 
power because spiritual truths are real entities, be- 
cause they can be presented to the mind by instruc- 
tion, because the light of life flows in by an inward 
way and illuminates them, and because the under- 
standing is the eye of the mind. The ability of faith 
is in the nature and action of the ordinary faculties 
of the mind, in their dealing with real truths present- 
ed to it by Revelation, for orderly and normal ends. 
Man cannot invent these real truths, nor spin them 
out of his own consciousness, any more than he can 
make an external world that way; but he can see 
them when presented. " Faith comes by hearing, 
and hearing by the Word of God." A man can put 
out his eyes ; or seeing, he can by sophistries discredit 
sight until he doubts the reality of what he sees. 
But that does not alter the fact for those who have 
sound eyes and choose to make an orderly use of 
them. A man may destroy his ability to see 
spiritual truths by regarding them from the love of 
self and worldly eminence ; and men from such loves 
may pervert spiritual truths and create an imaginary 
heaven of phantasies and conceits, and propose them 
as the Word of God. But the only result will be 
that men of sound minds and humble aspiration after 



2 2 FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 

goodness will say " I do not see." When the truth 
comes to such they will see. 

The perplexities of faith in our day come from no 
inherent difficulties of belief, but from wrong in- 
struction as to what faith is, and as to its objects of 
belief. They come from the impossibility of what 
is called faith, namely confidence in what is not 
known and cannot be understood, and from revolt 
of the understanding against dogmas, which are 
false and contrary to the nature of the mind itself. 
The need of the age is Revelation, instruction in 
truths — how to think of God, of God in Christ, how 
to understand the Scriptures and see in them the 
nature of the soul, and its relations to God and to 
the present and the eternal life. As the human in- 
strument in this opening of revelation for men, of 
presenting rational and therefore human truths to 
men's sight, Swedenborg has shown in the Divine 
humanity of Jesus Christ the relations of God and 
man, of the spiritual and natural worlds, of the life 
here and the life hereafter, as an apprehensible 
knowledge. The mind instructed in them has the con- 
viction of knowledge and the certainty of sight. It 
knows, and it knows that it can know what yet lies 
out of its vision. It knows that the Divine Human 
Lord is present by His Spirit to personally enlighten 
the mind, and guide by known truths into the per- 
ception of ever deeper and more interior spiritual 
realities. Its confidence and expectation rest on ex- 



FAITH AND COMMON SENSE 23 

perience of sight, on the knowledge from inward 
sight of Him who has the light of life, and of His 
power to " open the understanding " to " understand 
the Scriptures." The gospel to this age is, not that 
you can be persuaded of the unseen, and feel con- 
fident of the truth of that you do not understand, 
but that you can inwardly see and know the mind and 
meaning of the " Light of the World." 



WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 

"\irHAT can we know of God? We can know 
what is revealed. Another way to state the 
question, in favor with certain thinkers, is, what can 
the finite know of the Infinite ? And the answer is : 
Nothing of the Infinite in Itself; but of the Infinite 
in relation to the finite, we can know by Divine in- 
struction much that is both true and capable of 
evolving from itself, ever more interior truths. 

Human thought comes at last to the "unknow- 
able " ; but the boundaries of knowledge are be- 
yond the limits of human need, and immeasurably 
beyond the boundaries of nature to which the 
Agnostic would limit it. Revelation extends the 
boundaries of knowledge across a spiritual world 
to include God in multiform relations to the human 
soul and the world of nature. Man's natural facul- 
ties with their senses placed down into nature, 
cannot discern God, nor the nature and conditions 
of the spiritual world; but God can reveal Himself 
to the mind, and instruct concerning the spiritual 
world. He can do this on the necessary terms of 



WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 25 

all instruction, namely, the representation of the un- 
known in the terms of the known, and the develop- 
ment of thought thence by the light of His Spirit in 
the mind. There must be instruction from without, 
and light within. He provides both. He reveals 
the necessary knowledge ; He imparts inwardly the 
light of intelligence; and when they meet they call 
forth form, and enlighten the faculties to see the 
truth. In order to know God, we must meet Him 
as he presents Himself. The God of philosophy is 
an abstraction; the God of theology is too often a 
monster; the God of Revelation is the Divine 
Father of men. 

The simplest and most universal knowledge of 
God is that He is a Being of Infinite love, wisdom 
and activity, capable of revealing Himself as a 
Divine Man. The Revealed God is not an abstrac- 
tion, — not a force, not a law, not an all-pervading 
intelligence in nature. He is a Lover, a Thinker, a 
Doer, to be approached and addressed in the second 
person singular: "O! Thou, that hearest prayer, 
unto thee shall all flesh come." 

If the sacred Scriptures be regarded as the his- 
tory of Revelation, this is the doctrine of God that 
may be seen coming into definiteness, and even 
shape, till in Jesus Christ " God is manifest in the 
flesh." Beginning with the revelation that man is 
in the image and likeness of God, this personal re- 
lationship of God and man, is set forth by every 



26 WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 

form of language apprehensible to men. It is vis- 
ibly represented in the Theophanies, where to the 
opened spiritual sight of patriarch and prophet an 
angel filled with His Presence manifests Him as a 
Divine Man. He promises to come among men, 
and in the " Only begotten Son " appears as Man; 
and glorified and ascended, yet in form " like unto 
the Son of Man," He is revealed in open vision to 
the beloved disciple as the Alpha and Omega, the 
Almighty and the Only. 

This revelation of the one God, who is Infinite 
and Eternal Man, of whom created and finite man 
is an image and likeness, must be disencumbered of 
those crude and tritheistic conceptions with which 
Christian theologies have obscured it. The concep- 
tion of the Creator as one person, and of the Sav- 
iour as another person, and the Holy Spirit as an- 
other, simply nullifies the revelation of the Personal 
God. "Jehovah, He is God in heaven above, and 
in the earth beneath; there is none else." All 
through the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, the 
one God whose name is Jehovah, is the Shepherd of 
His people, the Redeemer, the Light, the Salvation 
of those who trust in Him. "There is no God be- 
side me ; a just God and a Saviour there is none be- 
side me. Look unto me and be ye saved, for I am 
God and there is none else." This is Jehovah, the 
I am, the Creator, the Redeemer and the Saviour. 
When He showed Himself to the prophets He ap- 



WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 27 

peared in the human form, which He put on by 
means of an angel, that he might be seen before 
their spiritual sight. This human form, which is 
called the Angel of Jehovah, represented Him, and 
especially that human nature which he should take 
on, in the fullness of time, by birth of a virgin, of 
whom it is said, "This is our God; we have waited 
for Him that he may save us; this is Jehovah; we 
have waited for Him, let us be glad and rejoice in 
His Salvation." The Human of Jesus Christ, 
born in time, is the " only begotten Son of God." 
The only God, within his Human, is " the Father." 
Jesus Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour, because 
Jehovah, beside whom there is no Redeemer, no 
Saviour, is in Him; and the Divine and Human in 
Him are one Person, as soul and body are one man. 
" He that seeth me, seeth the Father." " No man 
cometh unto the Father but by me." " The Father 
within me He doeth the works." " As the Father 
hath life in Himself, so hath He given unto the Son 
to have life in Himself" — that is, Jehovah God as 
the Divine Soul, made the Human Divine also, as 
the very form of God, " in whom dwelleth all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily." 

This is the Revelation of the Old and New Testa- 
ments concerning God — one infinite and eternal Per- 
son, dwelling in and approached through the glori- 
fied Humanity of Jesus Christ. This was the doc- 
trine of the primitive Church. They worshiped 



28 WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 

the Lord Jesus Christ alone, in whom is the Father, 
who is one with the Father, and from whom pro- 
ceeds the Holy Spirit. And when they named God 
the Father distinctly, they meant the Father in the 
Lord, the invisible God in the visible, who is one 
with Him, and not any divinity out of the Lord, or 
apart from Him. 

The conception of this revealed doctrine of God 
is not without its difficulties, indeed; but they are 
difficulties of philosophy rather than of religion. 
Religion demands a personal object; and a moral 
relation with the God of its worship. In faith and 
worship as they look toward reconciliation and union 
with God, the doctrine of revelation is precisely 
such as meets the highest needs of the soul. Man 
is not satisfied with himself, he is not satisfied with 
things, nor even with principles as abstractions. He 
needs a person, infinite and all-sufficient, in whom 
he can rest — God. Nor only so, but an all-sufficient 
person who yet is apprehensible, who comes out to 
be seen and known — God-in-Christ. He needs not 
only a God who is all-sufficient and apprehensible, 
but one who is comprehensible, who reveals His 
secrets, His love, His truth — who speaks a language 
intelligible to men. He needs a God who is not only 
all-sufficient, apprehensible, comprehensible, but also 
approachable and helpful — the hearer of prayer and 
the giver of the Holy Spirit. And this which re- 
ligion demands and the soul needs, the revealed 



WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 29 

God is, an Absolute Divine Man, who shows Him- 
self exactly to instruct mankind, who in the fullness 
of time clothed Himself with a humanity and ap- 
peared among men to be known and worshiped, 
as He promised by all His holy prophets since the 
world began, as Jehovah in His divine humanity. 
" He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." 

But philosophy, ignoring revelation, and yet as- 
piring to a knowledge of God, encounters difficulties 
that religion as a life of spiritual worship and obedi- 
ence would not experience. Beginning with ideas 
of space and time and dimension, philosophy finds it 
impossible to conceive how God could become in- 
carnate. Our sensuous ideas of manhood are con- 
founded with shape and dimension, and our notion 
of infinity is infinite space. An infinite Divine Man, 
or an infinite personality of any kind, is therefore in- 
conceivable to sensuous thought. But Jesus Christ 
is not inconceivable, and it is precisely because in the 
gospel image of Him our ideas can find ground, that 
God revealed Himself as He did, that we might see 
His glory as the glory of the only begotten of the 
Father, full of grace and truth. Beginning with the 
sensuous image of Him, accepting His own declara- 
tion that He is the manifestation of the Father with- 
in Him, thought may rise to conceive the Divine 
Human Personality of God. Entering by " the 
door," we may " go in and out and find pasture." 
God is love ; love is human. God is wisdom ; wis- 



30 WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 

dom is human. Goodness, holiness, purity, justice, 
mercy, tenderness, providence, are attributes of God; 
but they are all human. In man, they are the 
blurred and deformed image of what they are in 
God; but in Jesus Christ, they are in a perfect and 
Divine Humanity, as they are in the all perfect Be- 
ing of God. In Him we see the Father; and from 
the essential quality and character of love and wis- 
dom, goodness and truth, as revealed in Him, we 
can think about His Divine Human Form and Per- 
son, not as locally fixed in space and time, but as 
transcending them, and capable of being revealed to 
the sight of all spirits without being limited to the 
place of any one. It is thus that God who is above 
all, and in all, reveals Himself in each soul according 
to its reception of life and light from Him, but to all 
in human form and person; and without this sight 
of its object there is no faith, no religion. 

Philosophy ignoring the necessity for a mental 
image of God as a basis of thought, seeks to ab- 
stract all human attributes from any personal subject, 
and the more perfectly it succeeds, the more abso- 
lutely it identifies God with nature. The human 
mind may abstract color from cloth, intelligence from 
the eye, affection from thought, and so on; but in 
fact these things do not and cannot exist abstractly. 
The mind can abstract in thought the attributes and 
qualities of things from the things in which it per- 
ceives them; but it is absolutely unable to think 



WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 3 I 

that they exist separate from some things. While, 
therefore, you may think of a Divine essence ab- 
stractly from a Divine Form, in the nature of thought 
it cannot be conceived as so existing. If you think 
of Divine love and intelligence apart from a personal 
lover and thinker, and conceive them as active, cre- 
ative and directing in the universe, you will inevit- 
ably relegate them to nature as the soul of nature 
and the principle of life in things ; and they that wor- 
ship her become like unto her. 

" The whole tendency of modern science," says 
John Fiske, " is to impress upon us ever more forci- 
bly the truth that the entire knowable universe is an 
immense unit, animated throughout all its parts by a 
single principle of life." " Paley's simile of the 
watch is no longer applicable to such a world as this. 
It must be replaced by the simile of the flower. The 
Universe is not a machine, but an organism, with an 
indwelling principle of life. It was not made, but it 
has grown." And he argues that to speak of the 
Infinite and Eternal Power which is the source of 
phenomena as "material," is to talk nonsense. We 
are bound to conceive of the Eternal Reality in terms 
of the only reality that we know — that is, mind. 
Only eternal conscious and intelligent mind is suffi- 
cient to account for man's consciousness, and his 
knowledge of a universe of ordered phenomena and 
progressive " tendency to produce the highest and 
most perfect psychical life." And a universal prin- 



32 WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 

ciple of life which you can define in the terms of 
mind must have origin in and proceed from an eter- 
nally living and self-subsisting Person, " a Being 
with whom the human soul in the deepest sense 
owns kinship." Thus man, in his craving for a final 
cause is led even by the doctrine of evolution to con- 
clude a God-Man, whose life is manifested in every 
pulsation of the universe. What of it? It only 
shows that human reason can affirm that such a God 
IS; it cannot, indeed, tell what He is, nor what He 
will do. " Thou canst not by searching find out 
God." What then? Revelation comes to our help. 
God stands forth, manifests Himself. He instructs; 
and He gives knowledge. 

Submitting to be instructed by God's revelation 
of Himself, philosophy as well as religion receives 
its sight. It then knows that the Word, which is 
God, by which all things were made that are made, 
fills, actuates and animates the world He has made. 
How can a Person be immanent in the universe? 
By emanation of the activities of His love and wis- 
dom ; as heat and light from the sun are in all things 
under it by means of its atmospheres; as the love 
and wisdom of man are in his acts and works; yea, 
as the activities of the spirit are in the body, and 
give it life, and leave it dead when they are with- 
drawn. 

There is in vogue in our day a kind of Hegelian 
idealism which talks in spiritual terms and operates 



WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 33 

upon the mind as the glare of the moonlight was 
once supposed to do upon the sleeper. It confuses 
reason. It talks of the divine spirit of life and light, 
and sees no Divine Person as the source whence it 
comes. What it needs to restore rationality, is the 
revealed God. The idea of an immanent love and 
wisdom, of a divine life, emanating from a Divine 
Person would then be intelligible. It is engaged in 
its present processes, in the old and always impossi- 
ble problem of pantheism. How to derive the centre 
from the circumference, God from things, the Divine 
from the human. What it needs is to think the cen- 
tre in God-Man, and see the universe produced from 
Him, and infilled with life emanating from Him. 
Eternal love is His Being, eternal wisdom is His 
existing; and the activities of His love and wisdom 
are the proceeding Word, " whose goings forth have 
been from of old, from everlasting." By this pro- 
ceeding Wisdom " all ideas and the whole reason of 
the world came into being as the forms of the Di- 
vine love." He produced a spiritual world in order 
from Himself; and through the spiritual world He 
produced the natural world. He had an end 
in their creation. That end is man, and a heaven of 
men, created and recreated into angelic images and 
likenesses of Himself. This end in the creation of 
the universe is involved in the nature of love and 
wisdom, which cannot but be in the endeavor to 
create forms to which they may communicate them- 



34 WHAT WE KNOW OF GOD 

selves. The end was present in all the causes and 
effects produced. Thus the Lord produced the 
spiritual world an image and likeness of the infinite 
things in Himself which he would put into the mak- 
ing of man's spiritual nature. Then through the 
spiritual world He produced the natural world, an 
image and likeness of the corresponding things 
which He would put into man's earthly nature. 
The Word which creates indwells and actuates. 
Thus, through the spiritual world acting into the 
natural world, He produced man, who had been first 
in His purpose, and put into him all the Divine 
thought of this twofold universe. He made him to 
have in Himself a little spiritual world and a little 
natural world. The Word which creates, indwells 
and continually creates. The Divine love and wis- 
dom proceeding from God fill and animate all the 
forms of the spiritual world; and in and by the act- 
ive causes of the spiritual world, they flow into 
nature, sustaining, ordering and producing effects. 
The Word as the Creator, eternally creates; the 
spiritual world is the ever-present and ever-active 
soul of the natural world, and God by the Eternal 
Word is immanent in both. 

The Word is not another God, nor another per- 
son of God; but it is the going forth of His own 
life, the proceeding and immanence of His own love 
and wisdom. When therefore the Word was " made 
flesh," it is not another, but God Himself with us. 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 

a \ ~\ T^HOM do men say that I the Son of Man 

am?" asked the Lord. And when they 
answered: " Some say John the Baptist, some Elias, 
and others Jeremias or one of the prophets," He 
asked, further, "But whom say ye that I am?" 

One of the evidences of genuineness in the Gospels 
is their universality; their exact reflection of the 
states of men, and their adaptability to the needs of 
men, in all times and conditions. If the old question 
be asked in our day, although the conditions of 
thought have greatly changed, substantially the 
same answers will be received. " Whom do men 
say that I the Son of Man am?" Ask men, 
"What think ye of Christ?" Some, as of old, 
will answer: "A prophet; a man, born of earthly 
parents, yet marvelously endowed, especially with 
the divine spirit, so as to be worthy to be called by 
preeminence the teacher and example among 
men." Some will be found, ready to say, " Truly, 
this man is the Son of God;" one who, while in 



36 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 

human form, is yet in partnership with God; one of 
three divine persons. 

"But whom say ye that I am?" The New 
Church answers, " God manifest in the flesh," 
glorified in the world, " in whom dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily." His Humanity is 
the "Son" of God; the "Father" is the Divine 
Itself within Him ; and the " Holy Spirit " is the 
Divine proceeding from Him — and these in Him are 
one Person, as soul, body, and proceeding sphere 
are one man. Against this view, the other two 
named divide the Christian world. Let us examine 
them. 

1. The first, that Christ is a man like other 
men, no matter how wondrously endowed, is un- 
tenable for several reasons. First of all, because it 
voids the Gospels — the only records on which faith 
in Him as a reformer and preacher of righteousness 
can be built. The personality of Christ, as it pre- 
sents itself to human thought, is not the product of 
collateral history or of the constructive genius of man, 
but of the Gospels as they attest themselves to 
human consciousness. Criticism may do what it can 
with the records which we call the Gospels, account 
for them as it may, the fact remains that the ideal 
Christ, and the ideas by which criticism discusses 
their genuineness, alike rest upon the facts there 
recorded. Cut out of those Gospels all that asserts 
the essential Divinity of Jesus Christ, and you have 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 37 

no foundation left for faith even in a teacher and 
reformer to rest upon. Try it. Beginning with 
Matthew and ending with the Apocalypse, go 
through and sift out of the record all that imports 
the superhumanity of Jesus. Whatever is natural 
and human, so interblends with what is supernatural 
and superhuman, and makes so complete a whole, 
that if you pull away the latter the former goes 
with it; or else, as Dr. Sears has shown, leaves a 
remainder of shreds which belongs to no history 
human or divine. The birth accords with the resur- 
rection and the ascension; they mutually explain 
each other, and explain the miracles as well, and 
justify His teaching concerning Himself. He did 
not say that simply to receive His message will 
be enough. He tells them "that all men should 
honor the Son even as they honor the Father," for 
" he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the 
Father who hath sent Him." He does not say I 
bring you the true doctrine which is bread from 
heaven, but rather, " I am the bread which came 
down from heaven." He does not bring news 
merely that there is a resurrection of the dead, but 
He says, " I am the resurrection and the life." He 
does not say, as any preacher would, I proclaim the 
truth which is to enlighten mankind', but rather, " I 
am the light of the world." He proclaims the spirit 
and power of God, not merely to those who live as 
He has taught them, but as His own, and as His to 



38 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 

give. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and 
in earth." " If I go not away the comforter will 
not come, but if I depart I will send Him" 

Such self-assertion, as Dr. Sears points out, was 
never heard of before nor since except among men 
of disordered mind. Why do we read it in the 
Gospels without being shocked? Plainly, because 
of its place and setting in a biography which is 
unique, and which none of our scales of human 
grandeur are competent to measure ; and yet the en- 
tire harmony and proportion are not broken but pre- 
served. Mar that biography, eliminate these elements, 
and we have not left a " mere man " nor the ghost 
of a man which can be outlined to rational thought. 

This view of Christ, that He is a man like our- 
selves, not only voids the Gospels, but it empties 
worship. A reformer, a teacher, is entitled to our 
love and our respect, and may claim discipleship, 
but not worship. But worship absolutely depends 
upon a thinkable object; that its God shall be defined 
in idea and in personal relation to the worshiper. 
The heathen who have never heard of Christ may 
worship God under the idea of a man ; but when He 
stands forth in His own form as the Divine Man, 
saying " He that seeth Me, seeth the Father" who 
is " within me," to reject Him is to reject the visible 
God, and worship the Invisible. The worship of 
the Invisible is empty; there is in it no thought, love, 
reciprocation nor power. 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 39 

Again, this view of Christ, that He is a man like 
ourselves, not only voids the Gospels and empties 
worship, it leaves sin without a remedy. There is 
no fact of consciousness more distinct than our 
departure from the law of righteousness, and the 
sense of sin. What I want is not an example to 
imitate; I can find enough examples among men, at 
least of one and another virtue. But what I know 
is that " he that committeth sin is the servant of 
sin," that I am in bondage to my own disobedience, 
and sick as the consequence of heredity and actual 
evils. What I want is a God who comes down to 
my low estate, delivers me from the evil spirits 
who infest and bind me in my hereditary and actual 
evils, and imparts power " to serve Him without 
fear in holiness and righteousness before Him "; one 
who " in that He Himself had suffered, being 
tempted, is able to succor them that are tempted." 
If Christ be not that, then are we slaves without a 
Redeemer, sick without a Healer; amenable to a 
law of righteousness, with no seen hand to uplift 
and guide. 

2. Turn then to the second view, that Christ is 
one of three divine, co-equal and co-eternal per- 
sons. As commonly held it is inconsistent with 
Monotheism. For if there are three each by Him- 
self, God and Lord, then are there three Gods in 
idea whatever may be on the tongue. A trinity of 
-persons is nowhere intimated in the Old Testament. 



40 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 

The New Testament contains no such declaration. 
Both Testaments contain much that in no way com- 
ports with such an idea. The Lord is one Lord; 
He is Creator, Redeemer and Saviour; and there is 
no God with Him. Such express and repeated 
declarations of Moses and the Prophets, distinctly 
negative the idea of three co-equal and co-eternal 
divine persons. There is One. " Of myself I can do 
nothing," — an infinite and eternal person cannot say 
that; nor can he say of another infinite and eternal 
person, " the Father within me He doeth the 
works." " All power is given unto me in heaven 
and in earth," — one infinite cannot give all power to 
another infinite. The relation of " Father " and 
" Son " in Jesus Christ must be the relation of soul 
and body in one person, for " in Him dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 

But what is the latest word of trinitarianism ? 
What say the Oxford Clergymen in " LuxMundi "? 
They profess the Nicene Creed, as the triumph of 
reason; and then they explain it so as to contradict 
the idea of tripersonality. They go back to the 
early Christian thought under the stimulus of the 
Greek philosophy. They show the two ideas 
which presented themselves for reconciliation. God, 
as an object of worship, must be personal, and thus 
transcend the universe. Philosophy on the other 
hand required the immanence of God. And they 
show that the problem was met in the development 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 41 

of the doctrine of the Logos. Christ, is the Word, 
the eternal reason of God; the Divine Intelligence 
going forth, creating and dwelling in that which He 
creates; thus immanent and omnipresent in the uni- 
verse. The Incarnation is His manifestation, in His 
relation to man, and as working with and in human- 
ity. All this is so far tenable. But why call this 
Word or reason of God a person? It is the wis- 
dom of the only Divine person going forth and 
operating; and its Incarnation is the Incarnation of 
the personal God. There would seem to be no 
reason why they should thus call the Logos a sepa- 
rate person, except that the Nicene Creed so calls it. 
They drop the idea when speaking to reason, and 
take it up when speaking of theology. The Creed 
calls the Word a person; the Scriptures do not ex- 
cept as they identify it with the Person of God, 
with Whom it was, and Whom it is. 

But what of the Humanity of Christ in which the 
"Word was made flesh" in the Incarnation? It 
was very man. And, in their idea, it remains man 
and finite, and at the head of that organic unity of 
souls called the Church. The doctrine as to His 
human personality, therefore, logically tested, comes 
to the same result as the Hegelian Theosophy that 
Christ was divine as all human nature is divine 
because of the immanent Word ; and the doctrine of 
the Incarnation is passed over to the interests of the 
race, serving as a type of the Divine incarnation in 



42 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 

all men, in all humanity, evolving Christs in every 
age according to the nature and fulness of inspira- 
tion. 

It is thus that " Trinitarianism," whenever it 
attempts to reason, becomes easily " Unitarianism ;" 
in which the only definite idea is the universe and 
man, and God is the same invisible, unthinkable, 
unapproachable and really impersonal notion. 

3. " But whom say ye that I am? " 

The New Church answers that Jesus Christ is 
Jehovah God in His own Divine Human person; 
and that in Him, the Father and Son are one person 
as soul and body are one man. 

As to the Human nature in which He appeared 
among men, and which He glorified by His life in 
the world, He is called the Son of God, because it 
was immediately conceived and begotten in the 
virgin of Jehovah God. " The Holy Spirit shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 
overshadow thee; therefore that holy thing which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of 
God." 

The Infinite and Eternal cannot be divided; there- 
fore the Word which is " with God " is God. When 
the Word was " made flesh " it was with God, and 
was God still, not a part of God. The Son of God 
was not predicated of this Word which is God, but 
of the Human Nature conceived and begotten of it. 
The " Word " is meant by the " Power of the 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 43 

Highest," which overshadowed the virgin and con- 
ceived in her the Human nature which she should 
bring forth in time as the Only and immediately be- 
gotten Son of God. All the degrees of manhood 
were infinitely in Him. From this in Himself He 
created the universe an image of man, and man in 
it. From this in Himself He dwelt with men, and 
worked in them, regenerating them, and making 
angels of them. From this in Himself he made the 
spirits of just men perfect, and related them in 
heaven as one Greatest Man; and His Divine in 
heaven flowed forth to men as His divine human 
spirit of goodness and truth. When nun had so 
rebelled against His law and so far departed from 
Him that His divine as received by the angels could 
not pass to them with redeeming and regenerating 
power, then He took to Himself that human nature 
which he had created and sustained. He took it in 
His own way, by the gate of birth; but, that it 
might be His Human, as a body responding to the 
activities of His own Divine as its Soul, He took it 
without finite human paternity. The Divine Creat- 
ive Spirit, which is present in all conception operat- 
ing upon and through the spirit of a human father, 
overshadowed heaven and the virgin, organizing a 
human mind and body, with Himself and His own 
indivisible love and wisdom as the Inmost Soul of it. 
" The Child born, the Son given," was inwardly the 
"Mighty God, the Everlasting Father "; outwardly 



44 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 



he was the Son of Man, born of woman, growing, 
hungry, weary, open to temptation, subject to death. 
Outwardly, Jesus Christ was a man among men ; 
inwardly He was unlike any man, because Divine 
from the Father. 

It is clear what must result in such a manhood. 
Since the Divine cannot be divided, the Divine Soul, 
which was Jehovah, must conform the outer to It- 
self, make the Human divine also, to have life in 
itself. This He did, by living into it and in it; by 
putting off what was finite and infirm, and putting 
on the Divine substances and forms from within. 
This He did organically and by substitution, as 
He laid Himself open to human experience, was 
" tempted in all points like as we are, 55 and " with- 
out sin " rejected the evil, yea and even the imper- 
fect and finite will and understanding, bringing the 
Divine goodness and truth down into the plane of 
human thought and feeling, and giving to the 
Human to have " life in itself," even as the Divine 
had life in itself. Thus He made the Human 
Divine, and one with the Father. This He did suc- 
cessively by His life in the world, and finished in 
His passion and death, when the earthly materials 
of His natural body were dissipated in the sepul- 
chre, and He rose with a Divine Substantial Body, 
apprehensible, approachable and the giver of the 
Holy Spirit. 

In this doctrine all the appearances of the Gos- 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 45 

pels are reconciled — the Divine conception; the 
birth, growth and progressive re velation ; the fasting 
and temptation ; the glorious resurrection and ascen- 
sion. Inwardly Divine, outwardly Human; the 
inner must conform the outer to itself and make it 
Divine also. In temptation and humiliation the 
Human feels its separation, and turns to the Divine 
within as to another; thus, Christ prayed to the 
Father. In victory and glorification the Human 
feels its union with the Divine within ; thus, Christ 
asserts, "I and the Father are one." The Divine 
and the Human acted reciprocally and unanimously 
as soul and body; thus, Christ declared, "The 
Father within Me He doeth the works." " All that 
the Father hath is given unto the Son." " As thou, 
Father, art in Me and I in thee." And as the com- 
plete glorification of the Human was about to be 
finished by the passion of the Cross and the Resur- 
rection, He delivered to his disciples the full doctrine 
of the relation of the Divine and the Divine Human 
in Him as soul and body in one person. " No man 
cometh unto the Father but by Me." " He that 
seeth Me, seeth the Father." The Divine Trinity 
is in Him: as to His Soul the Father, as to his 
Human the Son, as to His proceeding life the Holy 
Spirit, as to all Divine. Worshipping Him, we 
worship the Father. The Divine Human which we 
can see in thought and approach in affection is the 
Mediator, because the medium of the " fulness of 



46 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 

the Godhead " to human need and reception. " He 
maketh intercession for us," because His love 
worketh in us by His Spirit " to reconcile us unto 
Himself." He is the First and the Last, the 
Almighty. Not two persons, but one God in His 
Divine Humanity. 

Then was something added to God? Certainly 
not. The Divine Human actually and potentially in 
Him from Eternity to Eternity, " the same yester- 
day, to-day and forever," but which was realized in 
angels, and through angels in men, before the Incar- 
nation, He, by Incarnation, separated and glorified 
to be the medium of His Divine life and power to 
men who had lost the power to know Him and 
receive Him. It was only taking His own power 
and reigning. " He was in the world and the world 
was made by Him; but the world knew Him not. 
He came unto His own; but His own received Him 
not." In taking to Himself a Humanity distinct 
from men, and in making it Divine as the medium 
of His power with a lapsed and fallen race, He 
only did what was Infinitely in Him to do, in the 
hour of His children's need. 

He did it, however, divinely and perfectly. The 
Divine Humanity is not some ideal immanence of 
God in the human soul and race. It is the visible 
God, in whom is the Invisible. It is God's own 
Divine Form, and the medium of all power in 
Heaven and Earth. It is the centre and giver of 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 47 

the Holy Spirit to men, and the spirit which is imma- 
nent with men is His Spirit. God in Christ is the only 
God; and He reigns by every law of order in the 
universe. " This is the will of Him. that sent Me, 
that every one that seeth the Son and believeth in 
Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him 
up at the last day." 



THE ATONEMENT 

T T is notable that the doctrine of the Atonement 
should hold so prominent a place in the history 
of Christian thought, when so little is said of it in 
the Gospels. There is much indeed said of the 
work which Jesus Christ came to do ; but it is called 
Redemption and Salvation. He came to redeem 
mankind from the coercive power of evil spirits, and 
to glorify His Humanity as the medium of saving 
power and life to men. And He accomplished both 
by means of temptation combats and victories in 
them. " He was tempted in all points like as we 
are, yet without sin." "And for their sakes," He 
said, " I sanctify myself that they also might be 
sanctified through the truth." 

Here we have all that there is of the atonement 
as a doctrine of Christian philosophy, or as a doctrine 
of Christian experience. He sanctified Himself that 
we might be sanctified through the truth; or, as we 
confess in the faith of the New Church, "He for 
our salvation did come into the world and take our 
nature upon him; He endured temptations even to 

48 



THE ATONEMENT 49 

the passion of the cross; He overcame the hells and 
so delivered man; He glorified His Humanity by 
uniting it with the Divinity of which it was begotten; 
so He became the redeemer of the world, without 
whom no mortal can be saved." 

The doctrine of atonement is the doctrine of re- 
conciliation, and it is this : That " God was in Christ 
reconciling the world unto Himself " — first in His 
own person through the glorification of the Human 
nature which he assumed, and, second, through 
that glorified nature in the souls of men, winning 
them to Himself, and enabling them to live a 
righteous life in obedience to the divine teachings. 
Thus, when we confess of our God and Savior 
that He, " for our salvation, did come into the 
world and take nature upon Him," we confess 
mainly a matter of fact. We need to learn the 
fact; to recognize God in Christ, working in and 
through the Human nature w r hich He had begotten, 
giving power unto it to live a life distinctively its 
own as the human form of God. In this life, as 
the only begotten and human form of God, acting 
by His own power from the Divine nature within, 
" He endured temptations even to the passion of 
the cross." This is the life which the Gospel un- 
folds to us. This is the life of which the apostle 
said: "God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto Himself;" and of which Jesus said: "I sanc- 
tify myself." 



50 THE ATONEMENT 

He took the human world upon Him in that 
life; the burden of suffering and woe which lay 
upon sinful men; every form of temptation and 
assault by which wicked spirits seduce man into 
the love of evil and the practice of sin ; every in- 
herited condition of a lapsed and fallen race 
which served to bring men into bondage to the 
power of evil spirits; every human capacity which 
had been spoiled and ruined by generations of 
voluntary evil — and from first to last resisting and 
overcoming in every temptation, and in every con- 
flict with the powers of darkness. He removed 
from His Humanity all those hereditary condi- 
tions which belonged to fallen man and limited or 
resisted the Divine life; thus He put down the 
power of evil spirits, and at the same time glori- 
fied His Humanity with the fullness of the god- 
head within Him. " He overcame the hells, and 
so delivered man; He glorified His Humanity by 
uniting it with the Divinity of which it was begot- 
ten. So He became the Redeemer of the world, 
without whom no mortal can be saved." This is 
the gospel, full of Divine reasons which an eternity 
of spiritual growth and study may not exhaust, but 
so simple in its facts and so practical in its bearings 
that it touches us in our blindness and ministers to 
our extremest need. 

We should never have any practical difficulty 
with the subject if we would think of Jesus Christ as 



THE ATONEMENT 5 I 

God manifest in a Humanity, immediately begotten 
from Himself, sanctified through obedience to the 
truth, and glorified with the Divine fullness to be 
the mediator of Divine life and power to us men. 
The sacrifice of Christ consisted in the total sancti- 
fication and dedication of His Human nature till it 
was entirely reconciled to the Divine nature, was 
itself Divine from the Father, and one with Him, 
the eternal person of the infinite fullness — and this 
for our sakes, that we may be sanctified through 
the truth and brought into oneness of will and life 
together with Him. " As thou, Father, art in me, 
and I in Thee, that they may be one in us; and 
the glory which thou gavest me I have given 
them, that they may be one even as we are one, I 
in them and Thou in me, that they may be made 
perfect in one." 

This is the practical meaning of the atonement 
for us men — that we may be brought into oneness 
with God in Christ, so that we may, in our finite 
measure, will His will, love what He loves, think 
as He thinks, and do as He does. I need not say it 
is not accomplished. The corruptions and evils of 
human nature, as it exists in mankind, are neither 
abolished, nor removed, nor made of no account, 
by the redeeming works of the Lord. He sancti- 
fied Himself not in our stead, but for our sakes, 
that we also may be sanctified through the truth. 
He restored to mankind the freedom which they 



52 THE ATONEMENT 

had lost; and we are placed by His redemption in 
such a position that notwithstanding our own infirmi- 
ties we can freely receive divine aid from Him, and 
thus be drawn out of them and delivered from 
them. But He does not reconcile us to Himself at 
the expense of our individuality. He asks our 
consent. The Lord having conquered hell and so 
delivered man; having also glorified His Humanity 
that the Divine life might flow down through it as 
the juices of the vine flow down into the branches 
— He says: "Abide in me, for without me ye can 
do nothing." He asks us to turn unto Him, and, 
putting our trust in Him, keep His commandments, 
that we may be clean through the word He has 
spoken, and sanctified through the truth — to resist 
every evil which the Word of the Lord forbids, to 
put away from us every sinful desire, every wrong 
thought, and refrain from every evil deed; to stand 
in every temptation and to endure the cross, de- 
spising the shame — to follow Him in the life of daily 
obedience and self-renouncing devotion to His 
divine will, that He may be glorified in us and unite 
us unto Himself. " That they all may be one, as 
Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they 
also may be one in us." 

Does this mean, then, that in order to realize 
the atonement, man's will must be brought into 
harmony with the divine will, and all his thoughts 
with the divine thoughts, and his ways with the 



THE ATONEMENT 53 

divine ways? It means that. How then shall this 
thing be? "If any man will come after me, let 
him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow 
me." Was there, then, no debt paid, no sacrifice 
offered in our stead? Christ, indeed, paid the debt 
of divine love, which willeth not the death of any, 
but that all should turn unto Him and be saved; 
He laid down His life that He might take it again, 
and present it to the Father a living sacrifice holy 
and acceptable, not in our stead, but for our sakes, 
as the full and perfect medium of divine life and 
help to us in our state of sin and helplessness. 
But are not the merits of His sacrifice imputed to 
those who believe in Him? Not unless they 
believe in Him in such a way as to deny them- 
selves, take up their cross and follow Him, 
being sanctified by the truth, and presenting them- 
selves living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto 
God, which is their reasonable service. In a word, 
man acting in freedom according to his light " must 
repent and turn from his transgression ; " he must 
" put away from him all his transgressions whereby 
he has transgressed, and make him a new heart 
and a new spirit;" he must follow the Lord in the 
life of devotion to the divine will and word, till 
law has passed into life, and the heart throbs in 
unison with the divine love. We must be sancti- 
fied by the truth: " Thy word is truth." We must 
answer the tempter: "It is written thou shalt not." 



54 THE ATONEMENT 

If we are disposed to be anxious about the future, 
we must remember the words : " Be not anxious 
for the morrow." When anger arises, and the 
spirits of revenge clamor for a place in our hearts, 
we must remember the word : " Cease from anger 
and forsake wrath." If we are disposed to defraud 
our neighbor, we must hear God saying to us: 
" Thou shalt not steal." When anything is pre- 
sented to us which we know to be insincere and 
unjust, we must remember that it ought not to be 
done, because it is contrary to the divine command- 
ment. In so far as any one accustoms himself thus 
to shun evil, so far the higher faculties of his 
mind are opened; and as these are opened, those 
hidden, nameless evils of the heart, which hide 
and turn in the abysses of our selfishness, will 
come to judgment, casting us into temptations dire 
and overwhelming, but necessary to be endured 
before we can be wholly at one with the Lord. 
" Ye shall indeed drink the cup that I drink of, 
and be baptized with the baptism that I am bap- 
tized withal." We must be crucified with Christ 
before we can rise with him. 

Who is equal to these things? Not one of us, 
but through him who, for our sakes, sanctified Him- 
self, that we might be sanctified through the truth. 
But just this is the practical meaning of the atone- 
ment: " God is in Christ reconciling us unto 'Him- 
self." His Divine Humanity is the everlasting medium 



THE ATONEMENT 55 

whereby goodness and truth and power are quick- 
ened in us, and " in that He Himself hath suffered, 
being tempted, He is able to succor them that are 
tempted." He works within us- as an atoning, 
reconciling power and personal presence to turn us 
to Himself and quicken us with life. He can im- 
press His Divine Humanity upon our dead souls, as 
Elisha stretched himself upon the Shunamite's son, 
His mouth upon man's mouth, His eyes upon man's 
eyes, His hands upon man's hands, and shed forth 
His divine virtue until man's cold and dead affec- 
tions grow quick and warm with the love of God and 
righteousness. His presence, unseen but real, Mils 
us; His life, His words, they are within us; 
as we seek to fulfill them in heart and life 
they are made strong within us; as we neglect 
or reject them we persecute and buffet Him 
as did His enemies of old; but we can not escape 
His redeeming love, which follows us with its tender 
but almighty concern, ready to pour upon us the 
fullness of divine help whenever we will turn to 
abide in His word. This is His atonement, once 
made for ah men in the glorification of His Christ, 
and through Him in all men who will turn unto Him 
and live. We have only just to turn to Him and do 
His Word, and the glory which is given Him He 
will give unto us. This means, indeed, that we 
must first of all do that w r hich we find it hard to 
do; we must reject our own selfish and worldly 



$6 THE ATONEMENT 

motives and ends as deceptive, even when our love 
of wealth, of power, of distinction and all other 
motives of gaining the favor and flatteries of men 
seem most delightful; we must seek a personal 
communion with, and devotion to, the Divine- 
Human Lord; and then we must apply His truth 
to the reforming of our lives. He is the truth that 
shall sanctify us. Truth as an abstraction is not 
the thing to follow, for it will not reform and save 
us. Truth in Christ, truth fused into goodness in 
His Divine Humanity, made to touch us through 
His divine presence, felt by our side and in our 
hearts — this alone has power to cast out devils 
from us and raise our dead energies and aspira- 
tions. He is the truth; to learn more truth is 
really to know more of Him; to learn the com- 
mandments is to learn His spirit and life, and to 
shun what they forbid and do what they enjoin is 
to become conformed to His life; and we cannot 
do these things except from Him as master, priest, 
guide and captain of our salvation. The evils that 
distract, the sins that dishearten must be resisted in 
secret; the burdens that break our hearts, and the 
fears that shake us with the breath of coming 
storms, can be rolled off only at the foot of a se- 
cret cross, and it is simply impossible to do this 
without a clear consciousness of the presence of 
the Divine Man. We are trying, perhaps, to make 
a religion of moral law, of philosophy, of doctrine, 



THE ATONEMENT 57 

of spiritually beautiful but abstract truths; then, 
we have yet to learn that these alone are not the 
garments of the God-Man, but we must establish 
some relation with the personality that underlies 
them. We cannot keep the commandments ex- 
cept we love the commander. Our thoughts will 
grow weary and fall back helpless, except we 
carry an image of the God-Man as our master, 
savior, helper. When we learn a truth we must 
think of it as a thought of His: when we see an 
evil to be shunned we must turn from it as some- 
thing He has put away from Him; when we take 
hold of a divine, commandment to do it we must 
touch it as the hem of His robe, praying for the 
virtue that goes out from Him. Thus turning, we 
shall be turned, and the love wherewith the Father 
loved Him will be in us, and He in us. 



PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 

XT OW and again some one who calls himself ortho- 
dox and yet enjoys the privilege of thinking 
and doubting will ask questions which show the 
impossibility of revising the old theology without 
destroying it. A little while ago one who sub- 
scribes himself as " one of those who want to be- 
lieve the old faith," objected to a metaphorical in- 
terpretation of the account of the fall, and asked if 
the eternal punishment of the non-elect is also to 
be metaphorically interpreted. Why he or any one 
else should " want to believe " the creed which he 
strictly interprets " as concluding an everlasting 
hell to which billions of ignorant and unknowing 
men are foreordained for a foreordained fault," 
passes understanding. If such people would only 
put the old creeds with all their metaphysical non- 
sense out of mind they need have little trouble with 
the problems of probation and providence concern- 
ing which this writer questions. 

The story of the fall of man, is it metaphorical? 
Yes, obviously so, if you will look into it, instead 

58 



PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 59 

of looking at it through the refracting glass of a 
false creed. It is divinely metaphorical, that is, an 
account in earthly symbol of spiritual things. Then 
are we not left in the dark as to that fatal disobe- 
dience? How can we know what the sin was? If 
we are looking through the symbol to the thing 
symbolized it is not far to seek. All men know 
that the serpent is the symbol of man's sensual 
nature ; that things are not what they seem to the 
senses; that they need revelation and enlighten- 
ment to guide them; and that man's perfect state 
is that in which his soul is internally open to per- 
ceive and acknowledge that divine " life which is 
the light of men," and to hold the fallacies and per- 
suasions of the senses subordinate to it. 

The divine picture of Eden is the representative 
of such a state. The soul is a watered garden ; its 
trees are perceptions, the tree of life the percep- 
tion that all life is the Lord's and all wisdom from 
Him, and the tree of knowledge the appearance 
that man lives of himself and must guide his own 
affairs. This appearance is good for man and 
necessary to his rationality and liberty; but it is 
counterbalanced by the revelation that it is only an 
appearance and must not be confirmed as a reality. 
Man is thus free in the equilibrium of his inward 
perception of the divine love and wisdom, and the 
outward sense of his own life and self dependence. 
The fallacious persuasions of his senses are the se- 



60 PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 

ductions of the serpent; the inclination of his 
affections first and then of his reason to confirm 
the persuasion of his own sense of knowledge and 
independence is typified by the woman and 
then the man eating of the fruit of the tree 
of knowledge. And this was a fall from the 
heavenly to a merely natural state. It closed heaven 
within and perverted the natural and sensual facul- 
ties from their proper places and functions as ser- 
vants of the spiritual, and exalted them as the motives 
and guides of life. This carries its own curse, 
which is sorrow and toil, and finally the extinction 
of all heavenly life. " In the day thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die," was said not because God 
willed it so; but because He would reveal to man 
the necessary and inevitable result. Men fail to see 
this meaning of the allegory only because they stick 
in the creeds and persist in thinking of an apple, an 
angry God, first parents, fallen angels, and all that 
sort of thing, which is neither in the letter nor the 
spirit of the text. And latterly, because the creeds 
displease men, they have conceived an idea of a 
primitive savage without revelation or religion, 
spinning myths out of his ignorance, and inventing 
the«e childish stories; a conception as irrational and 
devoid of scientific' basis as the other is of a Scrip- 
tural basis. 

What the Word teaches is that God made man 
very good; first creating him a natural and sensual 



PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 6 1 

man and then recreating him a spiritual and celes- 
tial man; and Eden is a picture of men innocent 
and good, in communion with God, enjoying His 
revelation within their souls, and perceiving thence 
the use of the natural man with its senses as sub- 
ordinate to the spiritual and in nowise to be trusted 
in themselves. The fall is the picture of these 
men, who know better, turning their back upon 
this perception to trust and act on the persuasions 
of the sensual nature. 

But why did not God make man so he could not 
fall from a heavenly into a sensual life? Because 
He could not make such a man ; and a thing thus 
made would not be a man, nor capable of becom- 
ing an angel. First that which is natural, after- 
ward that which is spiritual ; and spiritual manhood 
can only be brought forth in rationality and free- 
dom, and thus with man held in the sense of choice 
between the appeal of the outward world to his 
senses and the appeal of divine revelation to his 
inward spiritual nature. Without this liberty of 
choice, no man; with it, the possibility of a lapse 
into self and the senses. 

Why, then, should God curse man for his choice, 
if He made him so he could choose? He did not, 
and He does not; He reveals to man what will be 
the result of his choice. The curse is the conse- 
quence in the nature of man. When he turns 
from a perceived heavenly good to choose and 



6 2 PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 

adopt as the principle of his conduct a lower natural 
good, he makes that lower good an evil, closes up 
his inward heavenly mind, and introduces mischief 
and misrule into all his faculties. The love of 
himself and the world, instead of serving heavenly 
love, become the masters of his life, and are at war 
with the whole divine order of creation. 

But why should God visit the consequences upon 
his posterity? He does not. " The soul that sinneth 
it shall die." The diseased and disordered spiritual 
organism is hereditarily carried over, and thus a 
tendency and inclination, but no responsibility, no 
guilt, no curse. We are not punished for Adam's 
sin; we did not all sin in Adam's fall. Transmitted 
tendencies are one thing, transmitted guilt another. 
Hereditary inclinations to evil we have, but they do 
not become sins, are not our own, until they pass 
into act by our own choice in the light of knowledge. 
"As in Adam all die," means that we die spiritu- 
ally, not because he did, but as he did. The conse- 
quence follows the same sin. And " so in Christ 
shall all be made alive," not because He died but by 
choosing and living His life, living as He taught and 
lived and gives us power to live. 

Then there is this question of foresight and fore- 
ordination. If there had been no sin there had been 
no hell. God foresaw it and all the consequences, 
and, of course, therefore foreordained some to hell. 
That does not follow at all. It is neither Scriptural 



PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 63 

nor rational. Foresight is not foreordination. God 
ordains what He wills, and He wills that all men 
should be saved. He created man so that he might 
have heavenly life opened within him, and He pro- 
vided and provides with all men the means of salva- 
tion. He foresaw that some would not use the 
means, would turn from and reject them; and He 
provided and provides such checks and training by 
circumstances here and hereafter as to provide the 
greatest or the least evil possible in any case. He 
never invented any punishment for the wicked. 

The wickedness carries the punishment with it. 
But He foresees what can be done, by the adjust- 
ment of the punishment to the sin, to moderate its 
excesses and consequences. The life of the evil, 
the history of an evil world, and hell itself are full of 
the displays of the divine benignity. He does not 
ordain the one or the other, the evil and sorrow on 
earth or in hell; but He does ordain all those "laws 
of disorder " by which the one and the other is con- 
trolled and softened. He does not ordain the wrath 
of man; but He foresees it and "makes the wrath of 
man to praise Him," or to work for good, " and the 
remainder of wrath He restrains." 

But then, men say, He ordains human freedom 
from which all the evil flows. Yes, because it is 
the only way to make angels of us, and that is the 
life of His love. He can make stones and trees and 
beasts to receive His life and obey necessarily the 



64 PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 

one law of their life ; but he cannot make men nor 
angels, except by putting into the making of them 
that sense of self-determination by which they may, 
not necessarily but voluntary, obey the laws of life. 
This involves choice ; and the choice of the opposite 
can not be averted. From man's exercise of that 
choice comes hell; but the hell that is, is not a cir- 
cumstance to what it would be if the Divine mercy 
were not continually softening it in all ways pos- 
sible to hold the wicked in the semblance of order 
without taking away their freedom to choose which 
is their life. 

The idea that God contrived the pains of hell vin- 
dictively to punish those whom he hates, is blas- 
phemous and horrible. 

There are none in hell except those who choose 
it. Their punishments are the consequence of their 
own choice made in the full light of consequences. 
Those who suffer there would suffer more if they 
were in heaven without any change of nature ; they 
would plunge continually into deeper evils and 
pains, except for the divine foresight and merciful 
provision whereby their punishments are made a 
means of withholding them from growing worse. 

This is no such hell as the creeds have taught, 
and some may say, How is it hell at all if they love 
to be there? Because it is the opposite of heaven, 
a life contrary to divine order, at war with the law 
of man's essential nature and the nature of God's 



PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 65 

universe. There is no love of the Lord, no love of 
the neighbor, no love of usefulness, but only the 
love of self, out of which grow desires which in the 
nature of things cannot be gratified; the eternal 
gnawing of a lust and raging of a fire that must be 
held in bonds, be beaten back and deprived of its 
delights, to prevent its destroying itself and the 
world and heaven. And therefore God, out of love 
and not wrath, is with those who make their bed in 
hell, disciplining and punishing according to laws of 
infinite wisdom, which His foresight and providence 
implanted in the nature of the spirit and the spiritual 
world for the very purpose of doing good to the 
evil and not of vengeance. 

And such a Hell the Lord cannot prevent? No, 
nor could He prevent the evil deeds of the world's 
history. And yet He did not ordain it? Not the 
evil of it: some things He ordains, and some He 
permits because He can not prevent without greater 
evils, which He also foresees and thus prevents. 

Then God is not omnipotent? He is omnipotent 
to do good wisely; but He has no power to act 
against his own goodness and wisdom, nor to do a 
greater evil by preventing a less. His foresight 
covers all things; His providence is of two kinds, 
one goes before, marks out the way, and leads on 
those who will follow; the other follows those who 
will lead themselves, permitting, overruling, restrain- 
ing, and softening consequences. Hell is reconciled 



66 PROBATION AND PROVIDENCE 

with the idea of an all wise and merciful God, in that 
it is of itself the wise and merciful provision for 
governing those who will not follow Him and for 
saving over such poor uses and delights as are 
possible to those who have chosen the way of dis- 
order. 

And this is the lesson of our life in this world, 
and the sweet uses of adversity; we are allowed to 
fall into our evils, and the insanities and stupidities 
of them bring their consequences, to the end that 
we may see them, repent of them and be with- 
drawn. 

And if we will not repent and shun evil according 
to the law of the Lord as we know it, still He 
follows us and lays His hand upon us to withhold 
from deeper evils. Hear, then, the conclusion of 
the whole matter : " Fear God and keep His com- 
mandments." "If a man keep my commandments 
he shall abide in my love." 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

\~\ WHEREVER there is any religion there are two 
parties to constitute it, God and man; for 
there must be conjunction between them. There 
are two means to this conjunction; the good of love, 
which is life, which flows in inwardly from the Lord 
into all souls ; and the truths of faith, which are pre- 
sented outwardly, by revelation from God, to be ac- 
cepted and obeyed. So far as man yields himself to 
live according to the truths of faith, as from the 
Lord, and thus from a principle of religion, the 
Lord conjoins the good of love. Then his faith 
lives, and he lives it, and his life is from the Lord. 

There is power in this doctrine announced by 
Swedenborg; and there is the light of truth in it 
which appeals to the common sense of spiritual men. 
It solves the old controversy as to whether a man is 
saved by faith, or charity, or good works. Chris- 
tian doctrine is matter of thought and understand- 
ing; but the Christian religion is a matter of life ac- 
cording to doctrine. Doctrine precedes as a matter 
of instruction and knowledge; but that does not 



68 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

save men. Thought about it, and faith, as an in- 
ternal acknowledgment of its truth, follows; but that 
does not save men, though it is one means. The 
influx of the divine life, even when its presence and 
pulse is felt as good- will, does not save ; though it is 
a power of salvation. It is only when man from an 
honest and good heart lives according to the truths 
of faith that there is wrought in him both " the wis- 
dom and the power of God unto Salvation." 

This doctrine is simplicity and lucidity itself. It 
reduces practical Christianity to this simple formula : 
That a man should look to the Lord as the only 
source of goodness and wisdom, shun evils as sins 
against Him, and do good from His good-will to men 
in the day's work. 

i. " Looking to the Lord; " that is, in Christen- 
dom w T here the Word is, to the Lord Jesus Christ as 
a definite object of thought and a personal God to 
whom the heart may direct its affections and prayers. 
The Father is in Him ; the Holy Spirit is from Him. 
Thought is to centre in Him. Prayers are to be 
directed to Him. Whatever is done is to be done 
because He commands and requires it for our good; 
done as the law of His wisdom and as the simple, 
orderly and necessary condition of good life and 
blessing. 

There is nothing indefinite, obscure, or impossible 
in this teaching. It indicates a simple, direct and 
practical act of acknowledgment and worship. All 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 6$ 

that is involved in it, is of a like simple and practical 
character. Those who look thus to the Lord, 
cherish the Word as His teaching; and look upon 
every truth of religion and every good which it 
enjoins, as something of the Lord's own. The 
more truth the mind can acquire, and the more good 
it knows, the more clearly it sees and the better it 
knows the Lord who is good itself and truth itself. 
Learning truths from the Word is learning from 
Him, and about Him, and about His will for us. 
Looking to the Lord is therefore an act of love and 
faith, directed to His Divine Person, comprehending 
His Divine Character as presented in His Word 
and works, acknowledging His presence and power 
and imploring the will and understanding to live as 
He teaches, that is, as man is made and constituted 
to live. 

2. " Shunning evils as sins;" that is, examining 
our deeds and thoughts and intentions by the help of 
the Word and Commandments, and renouncing and 
resisting whatever in any of them is seen to be con- 
trary to His will and its law. There is nothing 
arbitrary in His will ; it is good- will. There is nothing 
arbitrary in His law; it is simply the law of life put 
into the nature and constitution of man, and revealed 
that he may know it and obey t it as the condition of 
order and goodness and happiness. By disobedi- 
ence to these laws disorders have been introduced 
into human nature. Self-love rules when it ought 



70 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

to serve ; and the love of the world is exalted above 
the love of heaven to which it ought to minister. 
From this disorder and inversion of loves comes all 
manner of evil. The law of life for man is, there- 
fore, that as he shuns evils as contrary and opposed 
to the divine order and the good of heaven and 
human life, the Lord works with the man to remove 
them, redeem his faculties and powers, and restore 
them to order and usefulness, with their heavenly 
delights and blessedness. The law is, therefore, 
" Cease to do evil; learn to do well." 

The Decalogue teaches what evils are sins: 
Unbelief in God and His providence; anger, hatred 
and malice toward others; impurity, lust and adultery; 
fraud and theft; lying and deceit; and covetousness. 
These are to be shunned practically and actually 
when they occur in our real work and daily rela- 
tions. When this is done because these things are 
against the Divine law and contrary to good, and in 
acknowledgment that the Lord desires their re- 
moval, and does remove them in those who shun 
them as sins, man receives love and enlightenment 
and power to reject evil and receive good from the 
Lord. It only requires, that when any evil recurs 
in the day's work and its actual life which is contrary 
to the divine commandments, that man should think 
and determine : " This is of inclination, but because 
it is sin against God and His good will, I will not 
do it!" While the power to combat against evil is 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 1 I 

the Lord's power, He does not exert it independ- 
ently of the man, nor yet through the man, but 
gives it to man to use from Him. So far as man, 
therefore, as of himself shuns evils as sins, and 
accustoms himself and from practice acquires a habit 
of so thinking and determining, he co-operates with 
the Lord his Redeemer and Saviour, and by degrees 
finds the life which leads to heaven an easy one. 

This is simple, direct and practical. It makes 
repentance actual in the day's work. It makes 
remissions of sins a real experience, and not merely 
a sentiment; and salvation, the Lord's own work, 
in which man's co-operation is an indispensable con- 
dition. It makes the Christian's growth in grace to 
consist, not in piety nor in the doing of good, but in 
being true; in shunning, as from hell, all that is 
contrary to the Lord's precepts as the revealed 
law of heaven. Then all that man does is good; 
until then, no matter how good, in itself considered, 
it has in it the root of evil. 

3. " Doing the work of one's calling, honestly, 
faithfully and sincerely." This is necessary to com- 
plete and constitute the Christian life for two reasons : 
first, because " Charity and faith are only mental 
and perishable things unless they are determined to 
works and coexist in them when it is possible ; " and 
second, because " the kingdom of God is a kingdom 
of uses," and society is a community of uses which 
" exist from the ministries, offices and various em- 



72 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

ployment which individuals perform." It is not 
enough to think well and intend well; the true 
thought and intention must be determined to acts of 
usefulness and good- will; and good works are all 
forms of use to the neighbor which are offered to 
each and all, more or less directly, in the various 
ministries, pursuits and industries of life. Thus the 
Christian life is not apart from the world, but a life 
in the world, and " consists in doing faithfully the 
duties of one's calling; for thus, if a man shuns 
evils as sins, he daily does good, and is his own use 
in the common body." 

The Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses; and 
he is greatest among men who perform the greatest 
uses, and he is chief who is of most eminent- service. 
This involves ( i ) that useful work is not a curse, 
but a blessing; that it is the only means of being 
useful and the only charter of rights in the com- 
monwealth; and to perform it without sin the only 
right to eternal life. ( 2 ) It implies that all useful 
work contributes to the common good according to 
the excellence and importance of the use; and that 
the worker draws thence — that is, from the com- 
mon good — honor and recompense according to the 
need of his use, and from the good of heaven ac- 
cording to the innocence and charity of his motive. 
(3) It involves that the work done and uses per- 
formed by individuals exalt the common good, and 
this the more in proportion as there is good-will and 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 73 

co-operative effort. And this involves (4) that there 
must be order and subordination. Some must di- 
rect and others must be directed. There must be 
head as well as hands. But the same law of use is 
obligatory upon those who rule as upon those who 
are ruled; upon those who lead as upon those who 
follow; upon those who plan as upon those who ex- 
ecute. (5) It involves that property and owner- 
ship are a trust; and that the only Divine title to 
possession, whether of one talent or of ten, is the 
willingness to use it for the common good ; that hon- 
ors and dignities do not belong to persons, but to the 
office and use which they perform ; and that the only 
title to an eternal inheritance is faithfulness in the 
things committed to us, for the love of God who or- 
dains them for good. " He that is faithful in that 
which is least is faithful also in much : and he that 
is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." 



THE FUTURE LIFE 

]\ /[* AN wants to know of a spiritual world and the 
life after death ; and this knowledge, like the 
knowledge of God, must be given by revelation. 
One of the first effects of the coming of the Lord as 
the " Light of the World " was the restoration of this 
knowledge, and the implanting of faith in the near- 
ness of the spiritual world, and the reality of man's 
life in his spiritual body after death. The doctrine 
of the resurrection, the transfiguration of Christ, the 
vision of Moses and Elias, and of the angels at Beth- 
lehem and at the Sepulchre, and the post-resurrec- 
tion appearances of the Lord, imparted to the dis- 
ciples a conception of a body within the body, and 
of a world within the world. Their spiritual sight 
was opened; they saw the Lord, they saw the angels, 
under the circumstances which convinced them that 
death is but a crisis in life ; that it ushers us into a 
living world, a world just at hand ensphering our 
spirits, and peopled with living persons whom we 
call deceased. They lived as in the presence of the 
spiritual world; they had no fear of being lost or 

74 



THE FUTURE LIFE 75 

strangers in its new experiences, since they were but 
to rejoin the Lord, and those who had gone before, 
and live with them in a real phenomenal spiritual world 
exactly suited to man in his spiritual body. They 
saw this truth involved in the disclosures of the 
Seers. There are no philosophical propositions in 
the Scriptures regarding the nature of the soul and 
the world of souls; but a cloud of witnesses testify 
that their " eyes being opened " they have seen, and 
offer their experiences for reason to generalize from. 

Grouping all these visions we may say: (i.) 
The Scriptures represent that men have been per- 
mitted to see, and in many ways to be sensible of 
spirits and angels out of the physical body, though 
once men on earth, and now moving among phe- 
nomenal realities not of earth. That is, (2.) These 
persons and things were perceived in a plane within 
nature and discrete from it, by spiritual senses 
touched and opened for the purpose, and in no case 
by physical sense alone. 

These things are testified by patriarchs, prophets 
and seers, from Abraham to John the revelator ; and 
their testimony is to be accounted for. Things 
which outgo daily experience have been attested 
over all the world by the personal character of the 
narrators ; especially when one after another 
deposits his stone of experience and the unpremed- 
itated building rises under an unseen hand into 
heavenly proportions, and becomes the only fitting 



76 THE FUTURE LIFE 

abode of conscience, affection and religion. The 
witnesses agree. Swedenborg coming after them, 
not only repeats their testimony " I saw heaven 
opened," but claims a mental preparation in a half- 
century of scientific training, and a state of pro- 
longed seership, enabling him to become familiar 
with the spiritual world as an explorer and investi- 
gator, and thus to explain the visions of the prophets 
and to present a completed temple of spiritual 
science, into which their separate testimony fits with 
the perfect relation of truth. He tells us that 
the disclosures of the Bible mean this: (i.) that 
what we call the soul is the man himself with an 
organized spiritual body, clothed upon with the 
physical body which is its perfect correlative and 
correspondent, and its adaptation to the plane of 
nature for primary development and education, but 
passing, when uncased by death, into sensible cogni- 
zance of the spiritual world; that is (2.) into a world of 
spiritual substances and forms, phenomenal to spirit- 
ual sensation, and related to the outer universe as 
the soul to the body, its correlative and correspond- 
ent. 

If this be true, seership is intelligible and spiritual 
science is possible. If the mind which is the man is 
in the human form, with an organic spiritual body, 
having its full complement of senses ; if man lives even 
now as to his spirit in the spiritual world, only not 
perceiving it while his senses are clothed with their 



THE FUTURE LIFE 77 

physical organs and his attention directed outward to 
this world; then, it is obvious that for divine purposes 
his inner senses may be temporarily opened and his 
attention be withdrawn from the body to the per- 
ception of the spiritual world. This is seership. So 
the prophets saw visions. And in this day when the 
facts involved in their disclosures are discredited, and 
all faith in the spiritual world and eternal life was 
about to pass away, the Lord has raised up another 
Seer, and opened his spiritual senses that he might 
enter as an investigator into the spiritual world and 
tell of its facts and phenomena, of its laws, and of the 
life of those who have passed into it by the gate of 
death. Swedenborg's contribution to modern thought 
concerning the spiritual world and future life pre- 
sents three characteristics which appeal to rational 
faith: (i) it rests on a basis of observed facts; (2) 
it presents a rational doctrine of the facts; and (3) it 
agrees with and explains, in both particulars, the 
disclosures of the Seers recorded in the Word. 

With the opening of his spiritual senses there was 
presented to his mind a new field of induction. There 
was spread out before him a new world, with facts to 
be studied and laws to be discovered. It was immedi- 
ately evident that there are two worlds, distinct from 
each other; one in which all things are spiritual, and 
the other in which all things are natural. It was 
also evident that spirits and angels in their own world 
are in bodies in human form, for he saw them and 



7 8 THE FUTURE LIFE 

talked with them. It was also evident that their 
world was in all respects a world, and not an idea ; 
for he beheld its firmament and landscape, its sun and 
all proceeding from it, related to his spiritual senses 
as really, and in all respects similarly, as this world 
to his bodily senses. It was also evident that the 
two worlds are perfectly distinct, for he was in both 
at the same time. He beheld the two worlds and 
perceived that they answered to each other, as cause 
and effect. 

But the spiritual world is spiritual. Its substances 
are spiritual; its forms are spiritual; its forces are 
spiritual. It is a world with sensible phenomena; but 
it is not therefore a material paradise here or there 
in the expanse of space. It is within the natural 
world, not as one box is within another, or an ether 
in a vessel, but as the man is within his body. The 
mind, which is the man and in the human form, is 
while in this world within the physical body; and 
they correspond part to part and function to function. 
So the spiritual world is within the natural world, 
and they correspond thing to thing, relation to rela- 
tion and force to force. This difference Swedenborg 
expresses by the term Discrete degree, because the 
two worlds are entirely separate from each other and 
" must be discerned in distinct separation." The re- 
lation and bond between them he expresses by the 
term Correspondence, because it is the relation of 
cause to effect. Broadly speaking, the spiritual 



THE FUTURE LIFE 79 

world and the soul are one degree; the natural 
world and the body are another degree. And be- 
cause they are distinct and yet correspond, the spir- 
itual can clothe itself with the natural, and by influx 
fill and actuate it. 

Thus man lives first in this world as to his con- 
scious sensations, plans and determinations, by virtue 
of the fact that his spiritual body is clothed in a cor- 
responding and perfectly adjusted physical body, 
through which his senses open out upon the natural 
world. Its objects and relations thus supplv him 
with objects of affection and thought which in the 
mind become again the object of a higher thought 
and more interior affection. At the death of the 
physical body, which consists in such disorder and 
disarrangements of parts that it no longer corre- 
sponds to the spiritual body, nor fits the mind as an 
instrument, whence the spirit is unable to inflow and 
actuate it, then the man awakes to sensible cogni- 
zance of the objects of the spiritual world. 

It is not the purpose of this essay to go farther 
into the revelation of the facts from "things heard and 
seen," nor into the doctrine which explains them, 
and which they confirm. The information and rea- 
sons are within easy reach of those who may be in- 
terested to inquire for them. It can also be shown that 
the information about the spiritual world, and the rea- 
sons given, furnish just that explanation of causes 
which a true science needs to answer the questions 



80 THE FUTURE LIFE 

which its investigations raise, but which it cannot it- 
self answer. But the purpose here is to consider now 
the relation of the present life to the life hereafter. 

The birth of a soul is in a body in this world. The 
soul itself is a spiritual organism capable of receiv- 
ing and realizing life. It is formed of spiritual sub- 
stance organized in the human form. It consists of 
an organic will receptive of love and its affections, 
and an organic understanding receptive of wisdom 
and its thoughts. It realizes itself in senses opening 
out through a physical body into this world, capable 
of receiving impressions and being affected by them. 
Into this spiritual form life from God flows and its 
functions begin. As it has senses, there is a world 
of forms and qualities for it to perceive and be af- 
fected with. In the perceptions and affections of 
the senses our conscious life begins. As there is a 
divine order impressed upon the world, the senses 
have to be trained and adjusted to it, in a period of 
pupilage in which there is little personal interfer- 
ence. Our lives begin under the direction of others, 
and the culture of the senses is their disciplined ad- 
justment to the world of sense. 

As there is an organ of understanding so there is, 
as in the case of the senses, a real world of truths 
adapted to its perceptions; and the culture of the 
understanding is in the adjustment of its thoughts to 
the real relations of truth. This development also 
has its period of pupilage and external control. The 



THE FUTURE LIFE 8 1 

understanding is partially developed into the percep- 
tion of truths and their relations before it comes to 
its self-direction. 

As there is a world of things adapted to the 
senses, and a world of truths adapted to the under- 
standing, so there is a world of moral and spiritual 
good adapted to the will. It perceives and is af- 
fected by it. It comes to its- sense of good and evil; 
and in its period of irresponsible pupilage the will is 
brought into more or less of harmony with the di- 
vine world of goodness, with a perception and sense 
of pleasure in that which is good, and a certain pain 
at that which is evil. 

In the birth and development of a soul in this 
world, therefore, there are two things especially im- 
portant to be noted : One is, its distinct faculties and 
their interdependence ; the other is the provision for 
their partial development in a state of irresponsible 
pupilage. There is a real world of sense, and there 
is a real world of truth and good; and there are in 
the soul faculties capable of perceiving and being af- 
fected by them. The course of nature, the institu- 
tions of society, the influence of parents, and the 
ministry of unseen angels and spirits, are all made 
to cooperate in teaching the senses to see things as 
they are with delight in right things, in teaching the 
understanding to perceive truths, and in teaching 
the will to perceive good and evil with affections of 
pleasure or pain. 



82 THE FUTURE LIFE 

If you will reflect upon these things, you will see 
not only the importance of the present life, but the 
shallowness of our pretense of irresponsibility for the 
life we live. When the soul comes to its estate of 
self-determination, and begins to exercise in free- 
dom its power of choice and thought, it is already 
furnished with a certain and sufficient measure of 
moral sense and judgment. Its moral capital might 
be greatly enhanced if the functions of home, of the 
Church, and society were more faithfully performed ; 
but it is sufficient for the direction of life, if not for 
its completion, and it is greater than we think. There 
are influences affecting the child of which we take 
no note, being unseen. The angels of God, un- 
heeded by us, impart to the will affections of delight 
in goodness, and store up in the understanding im- 
pressions of truth that return in after years of need. 
And upon the soul, with its faculties of will and 
understanding thus opened and furnished, the influ- 
ences of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of angels, the 
direct lessons of the divine Word, the experiences 
and discipline of life, with its delights and disap- 
pointments, its successes and its failures, are all 
brought to bear with such providential adjustment 
to its freedom, that it may without compulsion de- 
termine its volitions and thoughts and deeds. In the 
whole experience of our responsible life in this world, 
God's providence has but one end — to lead us and 
train us in freedom, and as by our own will and de- 



THE FUTURE LIFE 83 

termination, into harmony with Himself and the 
goodness and truth of His kingdom. The faculties 
He provides within us, and the materials He pro- 
vides in the influences and instructions with which 
He surrounds and the freedom of will in which He 
preserves us. It is the only way to build a soul in 
angelic completeness; and all that can be done for 
any soul is done for it, even to the measuring of its 
da}'S on earth, and the meting out of the experiences 
of every one of them. The way in which we meet 
all this provision, and yield ourselves to its discipline, 
determines the direction of our character for good 
or evil, and the extent of its development. 

Death comes, and life begins again, as we take 
it up of a morning waking out of sleep. Man is 
free to think and feel as before, and a great deal 
more free to go and come ; a great deal more free to 
act out his thoughts and feelings than he ever was in 
this world. Where he felt obliged in this world to 
conceal his thoughts and desires, he finds in the 
other world there no incentive to do so; nor is it 
long possible. They are emblazoned in living forms 
before his associate spirits, and their real character 
in like manner is made known to him. Angels are 
sent to him and the quality of their life appears. 
Devils come to him and the nature of their diabol- 
ical loves and acts is manifest. The quality of his 
own life becomes known to him with a vividness he 
has never experienced. Purposes he has followed 



84 THE FUTURE LIFE 

out in ignorance are seen in the light of consequences ; 
his prejudices and notions are revealed in their 
effects, and his deeds shine with the quality of their 
motive. All this self-revelation goes on little by 
little under a government and ministry as wise as it 
is benignant. 

In fact, the Lord does not judge man at all in our 
idea of the word. He just lets the light of truth 
into him and through him so gently and fully every 
conscious moment, that he sees what he desires and 
chooses it in the full light of consequences. The 
Lord said : " I came not to judge the world, but to 
save the world ; the word that I have spoken, the same 
shall judge him." If that Word, or any version of 
it, has found a place in his heart, through the deter- 
minations of his will and thought here, when it 
comes to him in the other life he will give it a home, 
and it will give him light to see whatsoever hinders, 
and strength to put it away, though it be manifold 
evil which in this life he had never conquered, nor 
perhaps discovered. 

We see, then, the important relations of the pres- 
ent and the future life; that this is for the laying of 
the foundations and the free determination of the 
direction of character; that, for the separation of 
whatever is foreign and for the on-going of what is 
here begun. If we have turned to the Lord as the 
architect and builder of eternal habitations, and tried, 
however, feebly, if only sincerely, to mold our lives 



THE FUTURE LIFE 85 

upon His plan, we may rejoice in faith with the 
apostle, " that if the earthly house of this tabernacle 
be dissolved, we have a house of God, not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." If we acknowl- 
edge His commandments as the plan of a perfect 
man, which commandments are summed up in this : 
To love God with all the heart, and the neighbor as 
one's self — and if we are endeavoring day by day to 
work the divine truths of this perfect life into the 
structure of our thought and motive and deeds, we 
may toil on in joy and hope, without fear as to the 
completion of the eternal issue. 

Those who have felt the love of God in their hearts, 
who have heard the call of truth, and set out cheer- 
fully and nobly to obey it ; who have confessed their 
evils as sins, and resisted them in the power and 
promise of the Word, find little cause to boast of their 
readiness for heaven. Their achievements in right- 
eousness do not fill them with confidence. In the 
complex world of passions and purposes and persua- 
sions, the acknowledgment of the Lord and the 
love of righteousness are with the best of men, as a 
newly-kindled altar-fire, throwing only flickers of 
light upon the path of life ; and our highest achieve- 
ments of obedience are barely more than the prom- 
ise of an eternal habitation. We should find it so if 
we were to go over into the other world, with its 
self-revelations, to-day. Day by day our life 
through we are learning the meaning of some truth 



86 THE FUTURE LIFE 

we had known before; day by day we see new 
breadth and depth to the commandments, day by 
day some stone upturned reveals living things that 
make you shudder while they crawl — subtle forms 
of selfishness lurking in the path of our intended 
obedience. All these things, that are ever coming 
to light here, one following upon another without 
end, have to be separated and put away, if not here, 
then in that intermediate state of judgment which 
follows death. But if here begun, it is there accom- 
plished, not without trial and pain to most, but w T ith 
such riches of mercy and grace as leaves the soul 
its sense of freedom and hope, its seasons of delight, 
and in the end its unspeakable and everlasting sat- 
isfaction. 

It is matter for congratulation that while the creeds 
remain unchanged the thought of orthodox teachers 
is adjusting itself to the idea that punishment is the 
consequence of an evil life, that the evil and the pun- 
ishment are related as cause and effect. 

The distinctions between heaven and hell do not 
turn on morals and culture, but on the ruling love 
and center of man's affections and thoughts. Heav- 
en is to love the Lord, to love what He loves, and 
think in accordance with His revealed Word, and do 
in accordance with his will. Those who have made 
a beginning have every help, carried on after death 
until their minds are reduced to order and entire cor- 
respondence with this love. Then, in heaven they 



THE FUTURE LIFE 67 

love each other and the common good more than 
themselves. They are in the peace and harmony of 
mutual love. Their lives make their world, and 
their surroundings correspond and harmonize with 
their lives. Hell is the opposite to this. It is to love 
self above everything, to love the world for the sake 
of self; it is to think of self and for self even while 
obeying the laws and acting morally among men 
from self-interest, as well as with those who give the 
reins to their passions and plunge into vice. In the 
present life such a ruling love, whether in the vicious 
or respectable man, closes up all his higher faculties, 
destroys conscience, and throws the mind into an in- 
verted and disordered form. In the other life it 
burns and bursts forth, rejects all instruction, throws 
off all restraints, turns back from all discipline to its 
own ends and pursuits. It fashions all the thoughts to 
itself, makes the face and form into its own sem- 
blance, seeks those who love its own things, and 
casts the man down among his like, where together 
they revel in disorder and fashion a world like them- 
selves. 

There is no remorse in hell, for those who have 
any remorse, or are capable of it, are reformed in 
the world of spirits. There are no pangs of con- 
science in hell, for those who have any conscience 
left are led by it to heaven through the necessary 
discipline. There is no sense of pain at alienation 
from God and the company of the good, for those 



Ob THE FUTURE LIFE 

who go to hell are given ample opportunity in this 
life and in the intermediate world of spirits to choose 
God and the good. Only those go to hell who have 
made the love of self their ruling love and all the evils 
that flow from it their delight; who choose these 
things clearly in full understanding of consequences 
and in preference to the life of heaven. Hell is not 
the home of the ignorant, the untrained, the merely 
immoral and vile as to external life, whose condition 
in this world is often the result of undeveloped oppor- 
tunities, and not of the persistent love of evil in the 
full light of its contrast with good. There are prob- 
ably as many whom the world calls respectable peo- 
ple in hell as of those whom it calls criminals. 

The Lord sends none to hell; they go. He 
gives those who are evil a full chance to choose 
and make every good their life, but their evil ruling 
love rejects it; and this revelation of what they love 
and what they w r ill have is their judgment. In the 
process of it every good is rejected in full freedom. 
There is no remorse, no love of good, no longing 
for heaven, but self, self, and the hatred of every- 
thing that will not serve self. Hell is the Lord's 
merciful provision for taking care of such folks so 
as to save them all the delight possible to them, to 
restrain them from harming others, and to make them 
useful in a negative way in the economy of His king- 
dom of good-will to man. Hell fire is the raging 
unappeasable desire of their self-love, which the 



THE FUTURE LIFE 89 

more it is gratified the more it flames and burns to 
do its evil deeds. These bring consequences and 
pains, and their punishments and restraints, because 
they desire what in the nature of things cannot be 
satisfied. These restraints and reactions of their 
life are punishments direful and intolerable to them, 
by which they are cast down and led to restrain 
themselves for their own interest. Then the punish- 
ment is remitted, so long as they are held in, by the 
fear of it; but all the while their ruling motive 
pushes, and their desires gnaw and gnash to break 
forth. This is " the worm that dieth not, and the 
fire that is not quenched." All the sorrow they feel 
is for the hurt that results from what they do ; and 
their only remorse is like that of the criminal, who 
is not sorry he broke the law, but only that he got 
caught in its punishment. There is no lever to lift 
them into heavenly loves, only a force of reaction in the 
adjustment of restraints which may keep them in 
something of external order. Swedenborg has de- 
scribed the nature of these punishments, and of the 
effects of them, in a way to show that the whole 
economy of the infernal world is government ad- 
ministered in infinite wisdom, not to reform and save, 
but to take care of those who have rejected every 
opportunity of reformation and confirmed themselves 
against it. 

Where is hell ? It is in the lower parts of the spiritual 
world. We often say hell is here now; the evil man 



9° 



THE FUTURE LIFE 



is his own hell. So it is here in its principles; and 
the internally evil man carries in his ruling self-love 
the motive and tendency that will make his hell 
if he does not repent. But hell as a fact of the 
future life, as the home and government of those 
confirmed in evil, could only be realized in a spiritual 
world. In that world hidden things are revealed. 
The man cannot live two lives, an inward and an 
outward life, in conflict. He becomes through and 
through what he is at heart. In the spiritual world 
moreover, a man's phenomenal surroundings are 
created through his affections and thoughts and corre- 
spond to them in every particular. This world and life 
is intermediate between heaven and hell. It is a life 
of mixed good and evil. Good and evil motives 
may interact and struggle together in the same mind; 
good and evil minds live together and interact in the 
same society. The world of spirits into which man 
enters immediately after death makes one as to kind 
with this life. Good and evil come together, and 
mix and act upon each other. They may think 
one thing and act another, as in this world, at first; 
but they speedily discover that the inward 
thought is not hidden, and disguises do not avail in 
that world, but motives are clearly revealed. So 
each begins to act out his own inner character, as 
all motives for attempting to conceal it are removed. 
They can be instructed and disciplined in that world 
as in this, but it only results in the rejection of what- 



THE FUTURE LIFE 91 

ever is contrary to the life's love. Thus the good 
have their errors and evils separated from them, and 
the evil cast away every truth and every virtue ; and 
thus the good and the evil are separated from each 
other, the one being instructed and prepared for 
heaven, the other rejecting all instruction and seek- 
ing their own in hell. 

They go where their loves go; they act them out; 
their world becomes like them by the common law 
of the spiritual world that the objective scenes, the 
things, facts, and forces flow out from and correspond 
to inward loves, thoughts and determinations. Thus 
the infernals have no longer, as evil men in this 
world may have refined and educating externals 
around them ; but only the effigies of their own lives 
and the reactions of their own deeds. 

The use of this doctrine, is not to terrify men in- 
to righteousness, for that were impossible, but as a 
part of the whole truth that " shall make us free." 
It is to be pondered as a part of the knowledge of life 
and its issues that in freedom we may learn and com- 
pel ourselves to cease from evil and do good. It is a 
witness to the love of God, far more than to His maj- 
esty; it is a warning to the love of man that it is not 
his thoughts, not his belief, not his behavior put on, 
not his houses, lands, talents, but the ruling love he 
cherishes and acts from, that is determining the kind 
of his life and fixing his destiny. " Ye can not serve 
God and mammon." 



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